Autopsy Loss v Giants

J_Moore

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Great effort, ball never bounced our way.

Could not have been more impressed with McLean’s game...keeper!

Clearly needs a preseason, but feels like he’s turned in at least one solid AFL standard quarter in each of his games so far, hey.

Too short to be a great ruckman, but there’s a bit of mongrel about him.
 
Full respect to caesar88 for his passion for the club, but when he says s**t like ‘Parker and Kennedy gtfo our midfield’, you get a pretty good guide on how much stock to place in his post-match analysis

I bet JPK would be the first to admit he has not had a great year by his lofty standards. I do not believe he won a clearance against a very young Giants midfield. I am certain he is appalled and will have a better game v the Power.

I think Caesar posted in the heat of the moment. That said he is right, tho not in tone. Parker has always struck me as a burst midfielder, best used splitting his time between the mids and forward. I do not want to see him at every centre clearance. JPK's sun seems to be setting. I want to see him as a secondary and not the big dog mid.

The reality is we have been smashed in the mids most weeks this year. Rectifying this requires new personnel, new tactics and possibly a new Mids Coach.
 

J_Moore

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I bet JPK would be the first to admit he has not had a great year by his lofty standards. I do not believe he won a clearance against a very young Giants midfield. I am certain he is appalled and will have a better game v the Power.

I think Caesar posted in the heat of the moment. That said he is right, tho not in tone. Parker has always struck me as a burst midfielder, best used splitting his time between the mids and forward. I do not want to see him at every centre clearance. JPK's sun seems to be setting. I want to see him as a secondary and not the big dog mid.

The reality is we have been smashed in the mids most weeks this year. Rectifying this requires new personnel, new tactics and possibly a new Mids Coach.

We’ve been smashed in the middle because we don’t have enough other good midfielders going through there.

Kennedy isn’t the player he was 3-5 years ago, but he and Parker are still producing solid performances (often great performances, in Parker’s case).
 
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We’ve been smashed in the middle because we don’t have enough other good midfielders going through there.

Kennedy isn’t the player he was 3-5 years ago, but he and Parker are still producing solid performances (often great performances, in Parker’s case).

This is it. We need more midfielders around them to be better, not to get rid of them.

Carlton tried this model themselves - played Ed Curnow and Mark Murphy in very small periods in the middle for the first part of the year and got smashed. One of the first things Teague did was put them back in the middle and they've been much better. Parker and Kennedy have to play in the middle but we need other quality to spell them and play around them.

I certainly think Kennedy is going to have to start adding other strings to his bow from next year though. Make it so he can play 2/3 midfield and 1/3 forward or something.
 
Feb 5, 2012
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Full respect to caesar88 for his passion for the club, but when he says s**t like ‘Parker and Kennedy gtfo our midfield’, you get a pretty good guide on how much stock to place in his post-match analysis
Parker in, Kennedy could see (if not already) the game going past him with 6-6-6 rule decreasing congestion.
 

The Gong

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We’ve been smashed in the middle because we don’t have enough other good midfielders going through there.

Kennedy isn’t the player he was 3-5 years ago, but he and Parker are still producing solid performances (often great performances, in Parker’s case).
Bingo. You can't look at their performances in isolation. At their peak they had players like Kieran Jack, Hanners and McVeigh playing alongside them at an elite level. Yes JPK is tapering off but he's not done yet and Parker has actually a really high quality back end of the season after a slowish start. We need to build a quality unit around Parker, rotate JPK more and get ourselves a quality first ruck. I don't know how you could come to the conclusion that getting Parker out of the middle is a smart move. Certainly rest him forward but he's still going to be one of our prime inside mids.
 

The Gong

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Longmire works on about a 5 year time lag. Remember about a decade ago we were going nuts about not having a small forwards. Its been a few years since we've complained about mids so its almost time for Longmire to pull the trigger and seek some mids.
Fair to say Horse has been a little slow in changing the gameplan but it's been refreshing seeing us attack through the corridor in numbers this season. Ironically our greatest strength, contested football, has become our biggest weakness and we need to get that fixed first and foremost. The problem is we don't seem to be a destination club right now so the players we targeted to fill the gaps, we weren't able to land. Need to go hard to get some quality players in the prime age bracket to help support the young brigade coming through.
 
I can (only just) tolerate the Reid decision as a mistake made or free missed in the heat of a tight contest. The Menzel decision can only have been cheating.
I'm with you Bruce I thought the Reid non call was bad but the Menzel one was unbelievably bad and I don't get why there hasn't been more noise on that one.
 
This is it. We need more midfielders around them to be better, not to get rid of them.

Carlton tried this model themselves - played Ed Curnow and Mark Murphy in very small periods in the middle for the first part of the year and got smashed. One of the first things Teague did was put them back in the middle and they've been much better. Parker and Kennedy have to play in the middle but we need other quality to spell them and play around them.

I certainly think Kennedy is going to have to start adding other strings to his bow from next year though. Make it so he can play 2/3 midfield and 1/3 forward or something.


Do Parker and Kennedy have to play as much midfield as they do?

He doesn’t try much else
 
I'm with you Bruce I thought the Reid non call was bad but the Menzel one was unbelievably bad and I don't get why there hasn't been more noise on that one.


Because we aren’t a big vic club
 
We’ve been smashed in the middle because we don’t have enough other good midfielders going through there.

Kennedy isn’t the player he was 3-5 years ago, but he and Parker are still producing solid performances (often great performances, in Parker’s case).


Kennedy is still smart you can see it, that sounds dumb but he is adjusting to his lost attributes, eg handballs way more imo

If he stays his level he is still very good
Just hope not more decline that’s a big concern

Parker has been great as skipper, falls over way too often but captaincy seems to bring his best out imo
 
I bet JPK would be the first to admit he has not had a great year by his lofty standards. I do not believe he won a clearance against a very young Giants midfield. I am certain he is appalled and will have a better game v the Power.

I think Caesar posted in the heat of the moment. That said he is right, tho not in tone. Parker has always struck me as a burst midfielder, best used splitting his time between the mids and forward. I do not want to see him at every centre clearance. JPK's sun seems to be setting. I want to see him as a secondary and not the big dog mid.

The reality is we have been smashed in the mids most weeks this year. Rectifying this requires new personnel, new tactics and possibly a new Mids Coach.

Thank you for the benefit of the doubt B52, but it was not heat of the moment posting, just honest. IMO the state of our midfield is seriously dire, and they are the two most responsible for it. I can balance out my total respect and admiration for them as warriors of our club with my urgent desire to see them moving out of the midfield so we can start our proper rebuild in there and adjust our game.

FWIW, the 'GTFO' is not directed at them, it's directed at Horse. He needs to make them GTFO, and urgently, because we're going nowhere with them at the coalface. Maybe 'GTFO' is harsh to some, but not to me. I say it to my dog who I love more than anything when he has diarrhea and then starts running around the house.

And it's also not a criticism directed solely at Parker and Kennedy. I just think the 6-6-6 rule has done big-bodied bulls absolutely no favours at all. I look at Fyfe at centre bounces (in general play he is still arguably best in the comp), I look at Clayton Oliver at centre bounces, Kennedy, Parker, Rory Sloane... their impact out of the middle is seriously stifled. They are making centre clearances look like a lot harder than the new rules intended them to be, while the smaller-framed guys like Coniglio, Lachie Neale, Luke Shuey and Tim Kelly, are making centre clearances look like ******* art.

Parker and Kennedy are playing like it's 2014 still, and you can't blame them, that's their strengths and it's given them a lot of success over the years. But the new rules have created a lot more time and space, and the midfielders who are using that time and space best (ie smaller, more nimble inside mids) are the ones excelling. Trying to crash through packs single-handedly like a bull is not using the time and space to your advantage at all, it's doing the opposite, and inviting more pressure on yourself. It's why Parker and Kennedy can still wrack up a lot of touches but it doesn't translate to impact out of the middle. Because they've then put themselves under pressure, they've neglected to use the players on the outside (a serious pet peeve of mine), and instead gone for hack kicks off one step. It's why even when we win clearances, they're never clean or strategic.

Apologies for the lengthy rant but I think some are assuming that I'm just mouthing off out of frustration and taking it out on the two most obvious culprits, but it's not the case at all. Just a problem I saw foreshadowing of as far back as 2017 and has now hit rock bottom this year. I just think we haven't adjusted our midfield enough to the state of the game.
 
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What effect does 6-6-6 have on centre clearances themselves? I mean it was a ruckman and three mids before.... and it’s still a ruckman and three mids...
How has 6-6-6 changed anything other than an equal number of players inside 50 if you win the clearance and get a kick away, straight after a centre bounce?

Fyfe is 3rd for centre clearances average. Last year he was 4th. Oliver 14th last year he was 9th (0.21 per game difference, or a extra ) centre clearance every 5 games last year.

Not disagreeing our midfield needs work, or that we haven’t got the mix right (*or the players to mix), but I am not convinced 6-6-6 has changed anything about a players ability to win a centre clearance.
 
What effect does 6-6-6 have on centre clearances themselves? I mean it was a ruckman and three mids before.... and it’s still a ruckman and three mids...
How has 6-6-6 changed anything other than an equal number of players inside 50 if you win the clearance and get a kick away, straight after a centre bounce?

Fyfe is 3rd for centre clearances average. Last year he was 4th. Oliver 14th last year he was 9th (0.21 per game difference, or a extra ) centre clearance every 5 games last year.

Not disagreeing our midfield needs work, or that we haven’t got the mix right (*or the players to mix), but I am not convinced 6-6-6 has changed anything about a players ability to win a centre clearance.

There's a lot more space in the centre and less chance of it becoming a rolling scrum. That is how Parker and Kennedy used to get on top of other midfields, similarly Oliver, Fyfe etc. Now it's less about clearing it out by any means possible and more about the effectiveness of the clearance. As I said, those big-bodied mids are still getting big numbers, but look at the impact they're having. Their midfields as collectives are failing. Melbourne have Gawn giving it straight to Oliver, but their midfield routinely gets thrashed. We have two All Australians in Kennedy and Parker in there, but we routinely get thrashed. Fremantle have a Brownlow-winning bull in Fyfe, but their midfield gets routinely thrashed.

Then look at the contenders and who their midfields are led by... GWS have Coniglio, Collingwood have Treloar, West Coast have Shuey, Geelong have Kelly, Brisbane have Neale... Neale aside, none have as many clearances as the bulls like Cunnington, Fyfe or Oliver. Yet they've all been a lot more effective, and their teams are benefiting from it. Quality over quantity when it comes to clearances is the way to go.

If Parker and Kennedy are going to stay in there, they have to be a lot smarter than they are, and stop treating centre bounces like it's 2014. They have to start bringing the guys around them into it, even if they are less experienced mids like Jones, Florent or Rowbottom. This is where Kirk as midfield coach comes in.
 

RobbieK

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I can (only just) tolerate the Reid decision as a mistake made or free missed in the heat of a tight contest. The Menzel decision can only have been cheating.

Could have only been cheating? Conspiratorial nonsense. Never explain as malice what can more easily be explained by incompetence. The umpires aren't perfect but to suggest some sort of conscious conspiracy is fanciful and embarassing.
 

RW

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Do Parker and Kennedy have to play as much midfield as they do?

I think they do, as you need a couple of stronger bodies in the middle. Otherwise you end up with someone like Hannebery going into contests where he shouldn't really be going into and getting smashed, and we saw how that turned out.
 
I think they do, as you need a couple of stronger bodies in the middle. Otherwise you end up with someone like Hannebery going into contests where he shouldn't really be going into and getting smashed, and we saw how that turned out.


seasons over so they dont need too at the moment was more my point
 

Prez

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Wrong about Florent. He had a lot of impact today just by getting the ball. He doesn't need to do a lot with it to be effective because he is usually breaking lines or providing run and carry, which is what we need even if the follow-up kick isn't perfect. It's the games where he's not getting much of it, and then when he does he fluffs his kicks that are the problem for him, because his bad starts out-weighing his good. Today was definitely a reversal of that.

I know people are sensitive about bagging out the club champions and such, but that's not how I see it. What comes with accolades and appreciation is pressure and expectation. It's not unfair at all to expect Parker to perform at his best. We all know what his best looks like. Go back to 2016 to see that. He hasn't shown enough of that, so I'll call him out. Some on here, like yourself, think the club champs should be excused out of their underwhelming form, while the kids should be scrutinised much more. I guess we have the exact opposite perspectives on who and what warrants scrutiny.

As for Kennedy, I'm not disappointed with him at all. The fact he's still out there and winning the ball and trying his guts out is remarkable after nearly a decade of solid service to this club week in, week out. Time has simply caught up with him, he is only human. But I can be pi**ed off at Horse for persisting with such a player in the midfield when it's clearly not working, and hasn't been working for some time now.
Here is the problem with your thoughts on Parker. He has been rated in the top 10 players in the comp over all games this year and was rated number 4 a couple of weeks ago. The effort and support he has been giving the younger players should not be down played. He is leading a young group and doing a lot of the heavy lifting
These are the 1% that go unnoticed which the coaches see and which the number show. This is why I get annoyed by your comments. They are your opinion of him however it is not backed up by fact.
 
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